Friday, August 05, 2005

(Via WSJ)For long Amazon has harbored ambitions of offering more "digital content," such as music and movies. It has been selectively posting short films in its site for sometime & recently Amazon also Webcast a concert featuring Bob Dylan and Norah Jones on its site as part of its anniversary celebration. Amazon.com appears to be moving decisively towards offering a digital-music service, joining a crowded field that includes Apple Computer,Napster and RealNetworks among others. Amazon has reportedly held talks with record-label executives in the past two weeks about licensing music, and has apparently discussed a music offering that would include options such as song-by-song downloads and a monthly subscription service. Amazon seems to have discussed tapping MusicNet, a New York distributor of digital music, to support the service, and the indications are that the launch shall happen by the fourth quarter.Amazon is also in the process of hiring a content acquisition manager for their forthcoming digital music service.For Jeff Bezos,"Digital media is very important & reasoned that the immediate reason to try this is to bring traffic to the Web site.” It isn't clear how much of an impact Amazon might have on the crowded online-music field, dominated by Apple's iTunes service. While Amazon has managed to differentiate its offerings in other highly competitive markets, such as selling compact discs – and surprisingly it is noted that they are particularly good in environments where there are thousands of other choices,this move could be seen as an additional revenue stream, but this could be a low margin & tricky business.